Mr. OldMan...

I'll see your spelling mistake sign, and raise you this sign. Like your's, this one came from my work place.

Beware the Marauding Mucouser!! Ah... The joy of public restrooms!

Labels: complaints, pearls of wisdom, stupidity, weird things, work

posted by Rich B | 2:10 PM | 0 comments Are you kidding me?!?!? Miss Teen South Carolina

I personally believe that, like she is like, an idiot. Relax, this is work-safe, unless you were one of her teachers, then you should be fired. (You'll need the subtitles just so that you can verify she is actually saying what she is saying.)

Labels: stupidity, weird things

posted by Rich B | 1:42 PM | 0 comments Thursday, August 23, 2007

MLB Mercy Rule

I guarantee, I will not be the only one to blog about this, but the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 30-3. Isn't there a mercy rule in MLB? There is in Little League Baseball. And if there is not, shouldn't there be? Seriously.

Now, I will admit that my interest in baseball is passing at best, and I really don't understand ALL the statistics and data.. ERA for example.

As it was explained to me (and it could be wrong), they extrapolate how many runs a pitcher gave up for the amount of innings they pitched to determine what that pitcher would have given up, should he pitced an entire 9 inning game -- for example, a pitcher pitches 1 complete inning, and gives up 1 run. His ERA would be 9 -- assumes he would give up 1 run per inning (I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong). So for an Orioles pitcher who gave up 10 runs, and pitched say... 1 inning (or worse... part of an inning). To give up 10 runs in 1 inning, would (according to my calculations) equal an ERA of 90... I think an average ERA is 3~5... but and ERA of 90? not good!

Labels: hobbies, weird things

posted by Rich B | 8:52 AM | 1 comments I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat The local Bob Evan's Restaurant has a balloon artist come in on Saturday and Sunday mornings to entertain the patrons by making balloon art for you while you eat. If you think about it, it's a pretty good idea. Kids will want to return again and again to get new balloon art, and the adults sometimes enjoy it as well.

I know that the artist at least has my wife going back for more art, several Sundays in a row so far. She's even got her next couple of requests planned. I figure, it keeps her entertained and happy.

This morning, we got to talking to him while he was doing Tweety. He pops about 2% of his balloons, and he goes through about 1,200 balloons per week -- he does dinner "shows" at a couple area restaurants, in addition to the breakfast gig he has at Bob Evans.

He also does, weddings, birthdays, corporate events, fundraisers, etc... He's actually quite talented, and pretty fun to watch. The wife has the idea of having him at the next SPCA fundraiser that occurs (she's a volunteer there). Not a bad idea, considering they really try to gear these events towards families, and kids especially.

Labels: humor, weird things, wife

posted by Rich B | 9:42 PM | 0 comments Friday, August 17, 2007

Game Review - Madden '08

Quick Review...

Graphics - Amazing. Don't understand why (it's using the same hardware platform as Madden '07), but it does look markedly better than Madden '07.

Controls - They've made some changes to the interface that I don't like. I'm sure it's just because I'm used to the old interface, but initially I don't like the changes.

Game Play - I personally believe that the developers tend to swing back and forth each year between a really good offense and a really good defense -- I really don't know since I've only played maybe 5 different years. However, this year is definitely a defensive year... There are an average of 7 interceptions per game on the All-Madden level... and that's AFTER I turn the interception AI down as far as it can go. It's rather annoying!

Overall, I like Madden '07 better, but the graphics in Madden '08 are very good.

Labels: games, hobbies

posted by Rich B | 7:16 AM | 0 comments Rated E for Everyone Sitting on my passenger seat, waiting for post work play tonight.

P.S. I won't be drafting Vince Young for my fantasy team... Avoid the Madden Curse

posted by Rich B | 12:35 PM | 1 comments Sad Local Story

This lady lives in our neighborhood, and both the wife and I know her and her dog. In fact, our dogs have played together some.

Lisa and Diego

posted by Rich B | 2:31 PM | 0 comments I Just Don't Get It There's this guy... He owns his own business -- Professional Dog Waste Removal.

In our area, he's known as "Mr. Scoop". What does he write on his tax return as his occupation? What does he tell new acquaintences he does for a living?

His job is to go around and pick up your dog's droppings. Come on... Exactly how lazy have we gotten as a society, that we don't have the time or energy to pick our dog's droppings...

In my neighborhood, there are 4 people with signs in their front yard, so I'm guessing he has 4 customers, just in my neighborhood.

I've got a dog -- a BIG dog. And he sometimes has other dogs over to play with him in our back yard. Yet, using the device on the right-hand side of the picture, I'm still able to somehow muster enough energy to go into the back yard on a weekly basis, and spend all of 15 minutes removing not only his droppings, but those of his friends' as well. Does this make me a Professional Dog Waste Removal Engineer?

I don't begrudge this guy (or anybody in this business) anything. If there are people with more money than brains, and want to pay him $10/wk for a single visit to pick up droppings, more power to him.

I just don't get it.

Labels: my opinions, neighborhood

posted by Rich B | 11:06 AM | 0 comments My friend Sean and I have often talked about going out to Whistler - Blackcomb for a snowboard outing.

Perhaps it's better (for me at least) that we haven't done this yet.

Labels: hobbies, my luck

posted by Rich B | 9:48 AM | 0 comments Thursday, August 09, 2007

Today, right before lunch, I unceremoniously unplugged the entire BlazeNet hosting platform -- all the webservers, SQL servers, and webpage statistics servers.

This is something that 2 years ago, I would never have imagined doing, especially without hesitation, and right before heading to lunch.

Perhaps Jim Morrison was more of a genius than original thought...

This DEFINITELY NOT Comcastic!

Labels: comcastic, work

posted by Rich B | 1:03 PM | 3 comments Isn't this what happens at the Playboy Mansion ALL the time?

Sexual Assault Probed at Playboy Mansion

posted by Rich B | 10:43 AM | 0 comments Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Take Me Out to the Ball Park

This past weekend, I visited our local minor league baseball team with the wife, her sister, and the father-in-law. The tickets were compliments of Comcast, and I must say they were very nice seats. 8 rows back, just to the right of the section directly behind home plate -- close enough to hear the ball hit the catcher's mitt. Thanks Comcast!

While it was clear that this was a minor league and not a MLB game, there were some pretty impressive plays by a couple of the home team's players; namely 2 or 3 one-handed plays by 2nd baseman (he'd run down a in-field ground, one-hand it, and throw it over to first to get the out), and the center fielder ran a couple of fly balls down in the outfield.

All-in-all, it was a pretty enjoyable outing, and York even won. So that got me to thinking... I wonder how good a team we are? It's our Inaugural Year, and it sometimes takes a little while for an expansion team to gel. So I went to the website, and was surprised to see that York was leading it's 4 team division with a record of 15-7 at the time. Wow! Pretty impressive.

Then I got to thinking... They've only played 22 games?!? It's the beginning of August, and I thought they had been playing a while already. Looking at the schedule, they played 24 games in the month of May alone, and only won 10 -- meaning they lost 14. I was confused. So I emailed the GM, seeking clarification.

Dear Matt,

I attended my first game last eveing, and was impressed with the entire experience; congrats!

However, when doing a little research about how well the team is doing, I got a little confused.

According to your website, and that of the Atlantic League itself, the Revolution's record is 15 Wins and 7 Loses.

Looking at the schedule and results for just the month of May, however, I notice there were 24 games played and that the revolution won only 10 of them.

How does jive with the standings? Are they 15-7 with respect to series'... meaning they've won 15 out of 22 series they've had against other teams?

I'm just a little confused.

This was the reply:

Let me have the media department follow up with you on this. It makes no sense to me as well.

I'll keep you posted -- I'm sure everyone is sitting, waiting with bated breath -- as to the answer. However, I'm a little disappointed that the General Manager is as confused as I am. He's been "following" the team for months now. He didn't notice that:

1) Either the stats on the websites are incorrect.

or -- and I'm guessing this is the correct version, since York lost their last series, and now have a record of 15-8

2) The Atlantic League measures Wins and Losses in a format other than just the straight number of games a team has won and lost.

Labels: comcastic, family, hobbies, wife

posted by Rich B | 8:51 AM | 2 comments Monday, August 06, 2007 Life at Comcast

Labels: pearls of wisdom

posted by Rich B | 9:44 AM | 0 comments Movie Review: The Wickerman

The wife and I rented a movie this weekend called The Wicker Man. This is not the original (didn't know there was one until just a couple of minutes ago, but the 2006 version starring Nicolas Cage.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do yourself a favor and do NOT rent or even watch this movie. The best part of the movie was the credits. The wife kept watching because she thought it was going to get better. I kinda stopped watching the movie, and complaining about the movie about 30~40 minutes into it... Had the feeling I was ruining it for the wife with my semi-constant complaints, so I quit.

Now she wished she had quit to.

Her last words were: "That's it? It doesn't get any better?"
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